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Hardest Month Eveeeer

Have you ever tried to spin 10 plates on sticks while riding a bike? What if you drop a plate? It breaks and your tire rolls over it and slowly starts losing air. You wobble which causes another plate to drop and before you know it you are lying in a heap on the floor surrounded by a bicycle you can’t ride and a mess of broken plates. The odds of you actually being able to do this without it ending in a mess is very unlikely. But for some reason…because hope springs eternal….you think you will somehow be triumphant. Maybe it’s the dream that motivates you to attempt the absurd. Maybe it’s your ego. Maybe it’s your desire to give someone something better in life.

For some reason, I thought that I could move to the big city, to the nicest most expensive rental property, two weeks before surgery while trying to sell my house of 15 years, so I could buy a condo for my daughter. All before Christmas.

Without getting bogged down in the minutia of it all…just think about your closets and what’s in them. Then your garage and backyard and kitchen. Now add being physically disabled from a surgery. Now add the fact that you are the cheapest most financially conservative person you know as you consider your options in getting everything from one place to another, two adult children that don’t want to move, and buyers who have a horribly inept lender who keeps delaying the close of your house for over a month.

That’s a little peek into my life for the past month. Difficult is putting it mildly. It’s been a nightmare in some ways. Like after I convince myself that paying movers really is the smartest move and then sitting on a freeway stuck in traffic during the move because an elderly man died while driving in the fast lane and realizing you are paying the movers double time to sit in their truck. That was a $200 45 minute nightmare.

When I wrote in October about the fear I had of needing to accomplish so many things, I had no idea how truly hard it would all be. Moving alone has just about killed me. My surgery was not easy in terms of recovery, I was down more than I wanted to be and pushed myself too hard a couple of times which delayed my recovery further.

But one thing it hasn’t been is boring.

And life was meant to be lived right? Sadness comes when you say goodbye but excitement comes in experiencing something new.

I’m a city girl now. I walk up four flights of stairs every time I go to my car and every time I forget something after I’m already there (this tends to happen a lot). I wake up to the sun beaming through my windows, the sounds of cars and random clinks and clanks of people living around me. I walk my dog so she can relieve herself three times a day. I walk to the grocery store. I walk everywhere. I run on the beach. I say hi every morning to the lady who sweeps up after all who live in the building, and say sorry to all the other tenants as we strain to keep our dogs from killing each other.

My house is supposed to close escrow TOMORROW. You know how many times I’ve heard that? 4 times. It’s been delayed 4 times. But…I did get the asking price, and it appraised for the asking price. And I WILL have lots of money in my bank account come Tuesday.

I left my house for the last time yesterday and didn’t shed one tear. I’m so ready for this to be over.

Yesterday I put an offer on a condo that I will buy with my money. I will let my daughter live there so she can be free from the hassle of living in the dorms and I can be free from paying for it. I don’t know if my offer will be accepted yet. And if it’s not I will have to figure out somewhere else for my daughter to live in the meantime. But that is a problem for another day. Today I will just hope and pray they accept it and we can start THAT escrow process. If that happens everything will close right around Christmas time. Funny…perhaps I was able to spin all those plates without falling? Time will tell.

I’m still waiting for the day I can look back and say, “See it’s wasn’t so hard…” but now I know it was. Really hard. So the wiser me will instead say, “It was worth it.”

Harry has been my rock. He listens, he acts, he motivates, he makes me laugh. Had I had to do this all on my own, it probably would have been 5 times harder. So I’m incredibly thankful to my husband. In one short month we will celebrate our one year anniversary.

To anyone who has read my blogs from the beginning. You know what I’ve been through. When I sat, crying and despondent, on my green couch after my husband left me for another woman, I would never have imagined a life so full of hope and love. Never. That same green couch now sits in the center of my loft. It has followed me to my new life.

To anyone who is having a difficult time spinning those plates in the air, or if you are sitting in a pile full of broken ones, I offer you this encouragement. Don’t give up. Keep trying. Learn from your mistakes and adjust. But don’t give up. It will be worth it in the end.